Zilos

Criminal investigators can't root through Hoosiers' garbage on mere hunches of finding evidence, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled unanimously today.

Writing for the high court, Justice Theodore Boehm set a new, higher legal standard in which police must offer specific, legitimate reasons for trash searches that include a reasonable expectation of turning up evidence.

"The police can no longer, out of curiosity, come out to see what's in your trash," Indianapolis defense attorney Robert Hammerle said after reviewing the ruling. "We now require more of police officers than we do of raccoons."

Hammerle said the Supreme Court essentially recognized that most people put their trash in opaque bags -- and not clear, plastic ones -- because they continue to have some expectation of privacy even after trash has been placed at the curb.

"You can tell a lot about a person from their trash," Hammerle said. "You can tell what they eat, where they shop. Police should not have unbridled access to all that."

State Police, who conducted the search at issue, declined comment today, saying they were still reviewing the 11-page ruling.

In the case, State Police went through the trash of Patrick and Susan May Litchfield of Marshall County. Their names had been obtained from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which had come across the Litchfields in records subpoenaed from companies advertising in High Times, a magazine for marijuana growers, according to court records.

During two searches in July 2002, troopers found burnt rolling papers and marijuana plant stems, seeds and leaves in trash barrels about 25 feet from the edge of the Litchfields' property. That led to a search warrant that turned up 51 marijuana plants growing on the couple's deck and, later, the couple's arrests.

"We think it is not reasonable for law enforcement to search indiscriminately through people's trash," Boehm wrote.

The Supreme Court's 5-0 ruling sent the case back to Marshall County for a judge there to determine whether police had had reason to believe they would find evidence in the trash.

Even with this ruling, nothing would prevent police from searching through people's trash, but evidence they uncover could not be used in court unless it meets the new legal standard.

The U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that people have no expectation of privacy when they set their trash out for collection, but Indiana's high court interprets the Indiana Constitution to require a higher standard, said Steve Johnson, executive director of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council.

"This whole area of law has been in a state of flux," he said.

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